1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for managing admission or entry to an attraction, such as a theme-park ride.
2. Background Art
There are a number of circumstances where people have to wait in line in order to do something. At amusement parks, for example, a customer often needs to wait in line to ride an attraction, and the most popular attractions usually have the longest lines. Other situations where people have to wait in line are at banks, a bakery, at government offices, to buy tickets for shows or concerts, to gain admission to museums, or at any other place where the number of people arriving to take advantage of goods or services at any one time exceeds the speed at which any one customer or group of customers can be served. When such a situation occurs, a line forms.
Although customers wait in line, none prefer it. People feel that time spent in line is time wasted. A customer would much rather come back later when there is no line so that the customer can do other things instead of waiting in line. This problem is particularly acute in an amusement park. An amusement park may have hundreds of attractions, including rides, shops, shows, stores, games, parades, displays, and food services. If a customer must wait in line for each attraction, the customer may only be able to utilize a small number of attractions in a visit. For particularly popular attractions, the lines can require waiting for a number of hours, so that a customer might only be able to utilize five or six attractions in a ten hour visit.
Not only is the customer frustrated at not being able to access more attractions, but the amusement park itself suffers from having underutilized attractions because the customers are waiting in line for other attractions. Instead of waiting in line for a single attraction, a customer could be riding other attractions, eating food, shopping at stores, playing games, or other activities. It would be preferable if the customer could avoid the line associated with an attraction while still being able to utilize the attraction sometime during the customer's visit.
There are a number of techniques in the prior art to handle the problems associated with waiting in line. One approach to dealing with people in lines is to attempt to make the waiting more enjoyable or to make the time go faster. In some arrangements, customers waiting in line are entertained, such as with television, music, reading material, and so forth, so as to distract them and take their mind off of waiting in line. However, such schemes do nothing to prevent the need to wait in line.
Other prior art schemes have been used to attempt to eliminate the need to stand in line. One such arrangement is where each customer arriving at a location of service is provided with a number that increments for each newly arriving customer. Numbers are called in order, with the holder of a called number being entitled to service. Such schemes are often used at bakeries and other food establishments. This arrangement avoids the need for customers to stand in a physical line in order to determine the order in which they will be served. When the customer observes that the current number being serviced is so much lower than the customers assigned number, the customer might leave the establishment and return when the customer expects the customer's number to be called.
This scheme requires a lot of guesswork by the customer, and provides no clear guidance for the customer as to when the customer should return. More often than not, the expected time delay between the current number being serviced and the customer's number is such that the customer feels compelled to wait at the establishment to avoid missing the customer's opportunity to be served. So although a physical line might be avoided in such a scheme, the waiting itself is not really avoided.
Some prior art schemes at amusement parks and other attractions have attempted to avoid the need to have customers wait in line. In a first known arrangement, a number of tickets are sold or distributed based on an operating time of an attraction and the capacity of the attraction. A problem with this scheme is that it is a "dumb" system. The assumption is that the attraction will have predictable loading and operating times, and will operate at the capacity of the tickets distributed. A problem with this system is that it does not take into account actual real time performance of the attraction, nor the dynamic real time capacity of the attraction.
Another problem with this first system or scheme is that a customer can line up for multiple tickets for the same scheduled attraction operation. If the customer keeps the multiple tickets, the attraction does not operate at peak capacity, leading to a situation where the efficiency of the attraction (number of riders per attraction cycle) is lower than if a simple wait in line scheme is used. In addition, the system does not take down time or slow downs into account, so that tickets for later operation are distributed when the attraction may not actually be operating, or when it may be still servicing customers from earlier operation times. This leads to waiting in line or to an inability to use the tickets at all.
Another problem with the scheme is that it requires all customers to use the system. There is no alternative scheme available that a customer could use in place of the scheme, even when the scheme leads to more delays. If the customer does not obtain a ticket, then the customer is not permitted to access an attraction.
Another attempt to eliminate or reduce the need to stand in line is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,806 to Mahoney (the Mahoney patent or the '806 patent). The Mahoney patent describes a waiting line management system where a customer is issued a card or electronic ID device and by which the customer is permitted to use a plurality of computer access terminals. The access terminals are located, for example, in an amusement park. A customer using the card at the access terminal is advised of time slot windows available for a number of attractions and performances. The customer chooses one or more time slots for one or more attractions and thereby is able to pre-schedule the use of attractions.
A problem with the Mahoney scheme is that it allows customers to reserve the right to use a number of attractions, potentially preventing others from using the attractions. Another problem is that by allowing the customer to select a time slot, the Mahoney system lacks responsiveness to changing ride conditions and performance data. In addition, the slots themselves are determined by a pre-established allotment. Such advance assignment of time slots suffers from the same disadvantages as the above-described first known scheme in that there is no dynamic changing of time slot allocation based on actual attraction conditions. This condition could result in customers being required to stand in line if conditions have slowed down, eliminating the very benefit the system is intended to provide. Mahoney suggests that if such a situation occurs, then customers who do not have passes will be required to wait longer than customers that do have passes. However, such a solution still could require substantial wait time for customers with passes, and leads to unacceptable wait times for customers without passes. Another problem with permitting customers to select time slots is that all of the time slots may be selected for certain periods of the day, such as 2-5 p.m., while few or none of the slots may be selected for other periods of the day, such as 12-1 p.m. In this arrangement, the attraction may be underutilized during certain periods of time.
The Mahoney scheme manages slot times allocation based on a fixed capacity of an individual attraction. In actual practice, the capacity of an attraction may not be achievable due to a variety of factors, including number of customers, the demographics of the customers, attraction performance, the number of customer vehicles associated with the ride which are in service over time, the number of staff members available to operate the ride, safety factors, weather, etc. For example, the total number of customers in a park who may even desire to access any attraction may be much less at one time of day (such as at opening) than another time of day (such as mid-day). In addition, the capacity of an attraction may change due to a variety of circumstances. A ride may be taken out of service for a period of time or one or more "cars" or associated customer vehicles may be removed from the ride, lessening the capacity. The number of staff available to operate the ride may fluctuate during the day. If a fewer number of staff members are available, such as at a shift change, the number of patrons which may be loaded into each customer car or the number of cars which may be loaded may be reduced. When slow downs occur and customers with passes must wait in line, the time slots reserved by those customers for other attractions may expire. This not only frustrates the customers with passes, but leads to potentially empty seats on other attractions.
An improved method and apparatus for managing access to an attraction is desired.